Overview

This volume targets the contemporary atmosphere of lies, post-truths, and alternative facts. Previously, we had no reason to think humanity was about to have its dinosaur moment; we could be confident of surviving for millennia. It now seems that humanity's future might be a matter of decades, given the variety of existential threats we face, from climate change and asteroids to robots and AI. We are not going to save ourselves driven by faith, belief, hopes, prayers, and wishes in an atmosphere of science deniers. What is required is an investment in a renewed and re-energized secular worldview, guided by the sociological imagination and opposed to conventional reasoning and action.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sal Restivo
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   313
Weight:   0.643kg
ISBN:  

9789004721562

ISBN 10:   9004721568
Pages:   284
Publication Date:   10 April 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments About the Path of this Book Overture Bio-Sketches Part 1 The Sociology of Reality 1 A World of Post-truths, Lies and Alternative Facts 1 The Post-truth Regime 2 Conclusion 2 The Iron Laws of Reality 1 Introduction 2 Epistemic Vigilance versus Machiavellian Vigilance (Thomson, 2023) 3 Through the Cultural Looking Glass 4 Beauty, Terror, and the Sublime 5 A Child of the Book 6 The Road to Reality 7 Free Will 8 Open and Closed Systems 9 The Rejection of Transcendental Realities 10 Religion 11 Science 12 The Technological Fix 13 Sociology as a Science 14 Cosmology 15 Subscendental Realities 16 The Myth of Individualism 17 Objectivity 18 Conclusion 3 Existential Threats 1 Interlude: Principles of Sociocultural Evolution 2 Existential Threat: The Very Idea 3 On the Mathematics of Existential Threats 4 Death by Alien Invasion 5 Death by Mass Extinction 6 Death by Asteroid 7 Death by Super Volcano 8 Death by Solar Flare 9 Death by Auroras 10 Death by Climate Change 11 Death by Geo-engineering 12 Death by Nuclear Winter 13 Death by Pandemic 14 Death by Bioterrorism 15 Death by Salt 16 Death by De-education: The American Example 17 Death by Social Relations 18 Death by Supernova 19 Death by Gravity 20 Death by Black Hole 21 Death by Tipping Points 22 Death by Truth 23 Conclusion 4 Death by Chatbots, ai, and Robots: A Case Study in Existential Threats 1 Generative ai 2 ai Experts Increasingly Afraid of Their Creations 3 Trinity: A Lesson in Science 4 Oppenheimer Redux 5 Pandora’s Box & Frankenstein 6 ai and Ethics 7 Technology Assessment for ai 8 The False Equivalence Trap 9 Who Is Hallucinating? 10 The Hallucinations 11 Are We Over-Worrying the ai Problem? 12 gai and Consciousness 13 A Note on Turing 14 What Else Can Go Wrong 15 The Robots Are Coming 16 Robots ‘r’ Us 17 Progress, the Very Idea 18 Conclusion Part 2 Encounters with Reality 5 Reality Is Real: The Dangers of Romancing Reality 1 Das Ist Nicht Physik, Das Ist Theologie 2 Reality Is Real 3 Review 4 Reality Redux 1 5 Taming Consciousness 6 Conclusion 6 Reality Confronts the News as an Existential Threat 1 Supreme Realities 2 The Headlines 3 The Reality of Violence  3.1 Violence in the News 4 Violence and Disconnections 5 Intervention: Dunning-Kruger Chickens Come Home to Roost 6 The Irreality of Nostradamus 7 The Reality of Sex 8 What Kind of Life Form Criminalizes Sex? 9 The Reality of Religion  9.1 Mania from Heaven 10 The Reality of Religious Freedom 11 The Reality of Us: News on Who and What We are 12 Conclusion 7 The Reality of the Social Brain: A Case Study in the Existential Threat of Individualism 1 Connectomes 2 Brain-Machine Interaction (bmi) and Brain-Computer Interaction (bci) 3 A Case Study: Einstein, Genius, and Social Networks 4 The Woman in Einstein’s Social Brain 5 On Breaking the 11th Commandment and Committing Sociology 6 Conclusion Part 3 Evolution, Culture, and Survival Wisdom 8 The Cooperative Principle in Evolution 1 Introduction 2 From the Cooperative Principle to Love as an Evolutionary Mechanism 3 Interlude: Mediated Communication 4 Love, Society, Culture, and Evolution 5 An Evoutionary Sociology of Love 6 The Humanistic Conception of Love 7 Love and Human Liberation 8 The Future of Intimate Relationships 9 Summary 10 Conclusion 9 Survivability 1 The Pillars of Sustainability 2 Data, Data, and More Data 3 The Morality of Science 4 Survival Wisdom 5 The United Nations and Sustainability 6 Conclusion 10 Capitalism: Ideology Contra Economy 1 The Black Hole Economy 2 Will the Real Karl Marx Please Stand Up? 3 Capitalism in Ideal Type Terms 4 Capitalism (Ideal Type Format) 5 Capitalism: the Bottom Line 6 Conclusion 11 What Is to Be Done? 1 The Anarchist Social Order (See Bibliography on Anarchism and Social Order in References)  1.1 The Goals  1.2 Resources  1.3 Activities 2 Education Reconstructed 3 Intervention: A Note on Alienation 4 Managerialism 5 Conclusion 12 A Secular Humanist Worldview: Prologue to Anarchy 1 The Secular Worldview Narrative Unfolds 2 Levels of Reality 3 Science 4 Secular 5 Anarchism 6 A Secular Worldview Unfolds 7 A Secular Worldview Crystallizes 8 Secular Humanism 9 The Anarchist Imagination 10 Conclusion: Anarchism in the Real World 13 Anarchism, Properly Understood 1 Anarchism Redux 2 Social Anarchism 3 Coda 4 Conclusion: Once Again, What Is to Be Done? Part 4 Paradigm for Transition 14 What Is Real, after All? 1 A Reiteration 2 Reality Redux 2 3 The Garden of Epicurus 4 Realistic, Not Rational, Hedonism 5 What Is to Be Done? 6 A Different Beginning 7 Intervention: The Problem of Meaning 8 We Are Not Oysters 9 Origins 10 Hedonism Then 11 The Transition 12 The Erotics of the Revolution 13 Doomerism? 14 Conclusion: the Walls of Imprisonment Appendix 1: The Reality Fallacies as the Foundation of the Iron Laws of Reality References and Further Readings Index

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Author Information

Sal Restivo, retired, taught sociology at universities in the U.S., UK, Europe, Brazil, and China for 50 years. He is a former President of the Society for Social Studies of Science. His recent publications include The Social Brain (Lexington Books, 2023) and Inventions in Sociology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

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